I now have time to deep clean my home. Our Treehouse needs windows cleaned, the mud room cleaned, closets need cleaned out and organized, and kitchen cabinets need to be polished up. Oh, and the white railings out on the deck are slightly green from Grandmother Tree sending out her own blessings all over the house. If I keep thinking about what needs to be done… well the list goes on. I have begun, a little chore or two every day. My plan is to be finished in two months. I am feeling very relaxed and happy about this plan. I have always found the time to do the chores listed above, but not always as timely as I would like. That’s all changing now.

I started to really clean my living room two days ago. I had not dusted since the last wood burning fire in the fireplace, possibly that was sometime in April of this year. Boy, did I have the dust! When I wiped off the mantle above the fireplace I was shocked!

“Oh my gosh, Joan! You could write your initials on this dusty wood. I can’t believe you’ve let this go, all this dirt in here,” was what I immediately started to tell myself. It certainly wasn’t as bad as the picture above, but you would have thought it was the way I initially started to berate myself. Suddenly I could hear my dear friend Sharon’s voice in my mind, hear her teasing laughter.

“You’re getting your panties in a wad over dust? I thought you knew never sweat the small stuff. How many times did we practice not to sweat the big stuff?”

Sharon and I had been friends since my girls were little. We were both around the same age and had much in common. In her late thirties she ended up in the hospital with that deadly “flesh eating bacteria”. She had cut one of her left fingers with a sharp knife while chopping up vegetables. She ended up on a ventilator, a breathing machine, for five months. She lived in New Hampshire and when she finally returned home I flew to her house to stay with her, as her friend and caregiver. I stayed for a week, then returned back to Kentucky to take care of my girls. Sharon was indomitable, and slowly but surely regained her strength and most of her life back. She lived for her two adopted children. When Sharon loved she loved deeply. Later in her early fifties she passed from a sudden heart attack. I was heart broken, like so many of her family and friends. I think of her often. How happy she was to have lived through the flesh eating bacteria. And she is right, never sweat the small stuff.

I could imagine her smiling at me, encouraging me to let go of a little dust. How we would laugh about it all if she were still here. And then I thought of something I had seen a in a magazine a few months back. This was a magazine where one could order all kinds of knick knacks for one’s home. There was a wall hanging that I just loved. So funny! It said:

“From dust we came and to dust we shall return… That’s why I don’t dust, it could be someone I know!”

Oh, the magic of laughter. Sometimes I crack my own self up! And I know Sharon would approve. :O)

c   Love, Joan